


Arthur Awakes

by Glitch_V



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Once and Future King Series - T. H. White
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 14:39:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glitch_V/pseuds/Glitch_V
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is said that Arthur, Once and Future King, will awaken at the time when Britain needs him most.  History and humanity has a habit of foiling the best laid plans of mice, men and Merlin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arthur Awakes

Arthur woke.

The inside of the tumulus was not dark, as it had been every other time he had awoken. A light shone in the corner, the flickering light of a candle rather than the steady bright light of electricity. He lay for a moment without looking to see who was there. It had been a thousand years or more that he had slept, the wound in his side healing only slowly, and he was weak and unaccustomed to moving. Finally though, he did manage to push himself upright.

Of course it was Merlin. He was standing in a corner, not looking at the king but instead up the corridor, towards the door that led out and had been locked to the world for a millennium. Arthur turned his head, and saw the clouds he remembered so well obscuring the starlight.

“You have a choice,” said Merlin. His voice had finally taken on some sign of the wizard’s age. It rustled and cracked.

“Merlin?”

The magician continued without looking at him. “You may stay down here, if you wish. There is no need of you on the surface any longer, and no one will miss you. I would advise that. Sleep once more, and never awaken.”

“I have slept my time,” Arthur replied. His mentor’s manner was beginning to disturb him, and his doubts that he would ever have had the ability to lead Britain into a new Golden Age had returned in force.

“Well then,” said Merlin. “You may, I suppose, leave your tomb and see what your people have made. I warn you, though, that once you have left the threshold, you may never return and must live your life out in the world.”

Arthur stood up slowly, frowning. He approached the magician and was horrified to see that the man was weeping, silently, into his beard. He was stained with dust and more wizened than Arthur could ever remember him. “Why, Merlin,” he said, “whatever is the matter?”

Merlin would not reply. “I have said my piece. Choose, my king.”

Arthur looked at him, concerned, but he would not meet his eyes. The king looked up at the doorway, seeing the night sky outside, the layer of cloud glowing dully. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Another peaceful rest lying upon the kingdom of Britain.

He began to walk up the corridor towards the starlight. The landscape gradually unfolded before him. He stopped on the border of the stone threshold and tried to take in what he saw.

It was not night, but a day so heavily cloaked in dust that the sun could barely penetrate through it. What light reached the land showed a devastation stretching in all directions. Buildings, once taller than any Arthur had ever seen, lay now crumbled or mostly obliterated, only their lowermost levels remaining. The scorches of once uncontrollable fires, which had raged throughout the whole city before finally running out of fuel to burn, marked every wall. There was no sign of greenery, nor even any bones to mark those who had passed. The destruction was complete.

“They destroyed themselves,” Merlin called weakly. He had not moved, had decided that he for one would not leave the tumulus again. “In one day and one night, they razed the entire planet with fire and storm. If anyone did survive the radiation would have killed them almost immediately.”

Arthur stared out at his kingdom. Only when he realised that, no matter how long he looked, he simply could not take it in, did he turn back. Tears ran streams through the dust which had already settled on his cheeks as well.

“I think we shall remain here,” he whispered. Behind him, rasping on the stone, the door of the tumulus slid closed. It sealed those within with a dull crash.

*** 

Arthur woke.

The inside of the tumulus was not dark, as it had been every other time he had awoken. A light shone in the corner, the steady bright light of an electric torch rather than the flicker of a candle. He lay for a moment without looking to see who was there. It had been a thousand years or more that he had slept, the wound in his side healing only slowly, and he was weak and unaccustomed to moving. Finally though, he did manage to push himself upright.

Of course it was Merlin. He was beaming widely, his face no older than Arthur remembered. As soon as he saw that the king was awake he leapt up from the chair on which he was sat. Bounding over to the king he grabbed him by the hand. “Arthur!” he cried. “You must come and see.” He beckoned down the passageway that led to the outside world. Glancing blearily towards it, Arthur saw the stars once more.

“I’m tired, Merlin,” he grumbled.

“Pish tosh,” Merlin replied, “you’ve been asleep for over a thousand years. You can’t possibly be tired. Now come! Come!” He half-dragged the reluctant king from his tomb towards the waking world, only pausing just before they crossed the threshold.

“My pardon,” he said. “Before we go any further, you have a choice. Should you choose to leave this place (and you really should, because you need to see what has happened) then you shall never be able to return. You may decide instead to stay here, if you so wish.”

Arthur shook his head, thoroughly confused. He held up his hands and said, “Merlin, Merlin, please – explain. What is going on? Am I needed that urgently? What on Earth has happened?”

Merlin laughed. “What on Earth? Dear me, if you only knew...” He beckoned at the world outside. “Take a look”.

Arthur stepped up to the very threshold and peered out.

It was not night, oddly, although the stars shone bright. It was day, and in the sun’s light he could see a dull and dreary world stretching away from him in all directions. Buildings, taller than any he had ever seen, in a uniform grey stained with pollution, stood in orderly rows. Dirty water surged at their feet. Possibly, the king thought, at their waists, to judge by how tall the waves seemed to be. There was no green to be seen anywhere except for the algal blooms in the calmer waters. There was also no sign of humanity.

Arthur turned back to the magician in horror. “What has happened here?” he whispered.

Merlin gestured excitedly. “Massive pollution, global warming, a runaway greenhouse effect, a manmade mass extinction event. They really went the whole hog, did humanity. For a moment I doubted that they’d survive, but then they surprised even me! Look up. Look at the stars.”

Arthur did. “Why are they so bright?” he asked. “I do not remember any stars so bright as all that, arranged like this. Have I slept so long that the heavens have moved?”

“I said you had only slept a thousand years,” said Merlin irritably. “Arthur – they aren’t stars!”

The king raised a puzzled eyebrow.

“They,” Merlin explained, ever patient, “are the exhausts from the drives of hundreds of enormous space ships – like sailing ships, only ones that travel between stars – carrying billions of humans, in the most accurate of natural habitats that they could recreate, across the gulfs of space. Hopefully so that they begin anew, and not screw everything up royally like last time.”

Arthur looked at the lights for some time, until he realised he would never completely comprehend what Merlin had just said. But he understood enough, or so he thought. His people may have temporarily forgotten everything that he stood for – may have destroyed the land that he had lived and fought and died for – but they had realised their mistakes in time. And now they were going somewhere else, to build Britain, and the whole of the world as well, he supposed, around another sun.

He took one last look and then turned back down the corridor. “I don’t think they will need me, then, Merlin,” he said. “Wherever they may be going. So perhaps it would be better to stay here.”

Merlin shrugged. “If you wish, my king. I am going to watch another new world rise from the ashes of this one. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to join me?”

Arthur smiled. He was tired, after all. “You may belong everywhere, Merlin, but I belonged in the old world. And I think it would be most churlish of me to stay behind while it has gone elsewhere. Don’t you agree?”

But Merlin had already gone, and the door of the tumulus slid slowly shut on the aged king, last remnant of an already forgotten world, with a dull crash.


End file.
